Gaseous

Instead of filling cars with gasoline, people would go to the gas stations a put the hose in their mouth and fill up with gas until they puffed up big like balloons. Once they were all puffed up like Violet in Willy Wonka, their friend would come and roll them away. The people were stored in a yard next to a church on Dad Clark Drive in Highlands Ranch. Someone opened the gate and all the gas filled balloons went bouncing out around Highlands Ranch until they exploded, leaving a circle of gas on the ground. A match was thown and all of the circles went up in flames.

And I can step out into the light, and all will be behind me.

I was getting married to Tom. He and I walked into the church together to find that they had started the ceremony without us. They rushed us up to the alter and I looked back at my parents. I started crying because everything was all wrong and I was mad they started without us. I tried to explain to them that they needed to start over because my dad hadn’t given me away and the wedding coordinator said, “Too bad. Maybe you should have been here on time.” This infuriated me because we hadn’t known that the wedding was starting, and I told the lady that, adding in a very angry and sarcastic voice that maybe someone should have thought to come down the hall and get us since we had no way of knowing it was starting. The wedding coordinator insisted on it being our fault. She was a bitch and I told her so.
In this type of wedding I was too choose a new name. This name was for the last egg that went through my womb before being married and I would take it as a middle name. Since I wasn’t there, someone picked the name Nicole, which I hated. This made me cry harder. I cursed at the person who picked the name. I think it was Tom’s grandmother. I insisted I get to choose a different name and they wouldn’t let me. I kept arguing and crying but no one did anything. The wedding coordinator’s sister appeared on the side and said she didn’t know why I was making such a fuss about wanting my dad to give me away. She said she had dated him some before my parents got married and it was not that great. I was very insulted by this and started ranting about how my parents loved one another, obviously, or else they wouldn’t still be together.
This whole time I was crying because so many things were going wrong and I was so mad. They continued the ceremony even though I was so upset and crying. I thought, “It is not a good sign if the bride is crying through the entire ceremony.” At this point I felt myself gain a bit of consciousness. My next thought was, “Maybe I’m not crying because all of these things are going wrong but because I don’t want to marry Tom.” The thought scared me and it was too real, so I started to think about how my dress was ugly and would be different. The dress started changing shapes and patterns and things became swirly.
Next, it was night time and I was getting high in a car with two of my friends from school. One of them kept changing between Katie, Ruchi, and Misti. She was crouched down in the foot space of the passenger seat. She was giggling like crazy and said, “Did I ever tell you about this before? I get high and hide.” She laughed more, “High and hide!” We laughed at her and made her climb in the back.
Once she got in the back Brandon was driving the car trying to take me to one of his favorite places to hang out. We got there and it was closed on a Saturday night, which was very strange. There was a flyer saying they had moved the festivities to a new place. He navigated us there and there was a rock bank standing on the tops of buildings playing a show with lights and pyrotechnics - the works. The road was way up high along the tops of buildings, so we were driving right next to the band. They were pretty good! The traffic was terrible so we drove past and the road disappeared into a forest, but he followed it anyway.
We came up to a road closed sign almost right away, so we couldn’t go any further but there was a truck behind us. I was worried they would run into us, so I told Brandon to flash the brake lights. They eventually backed away, and he turned the car around. When he turned it around we were deep in the forest, far away from the paved part of the road. The grass was deep green and very high on either side of the rut that was the road. As we were driving back the truck came back, driving towards us. He swerved into the grass. We swerved into the grass. He swerved back on the rutted road. We kept going in the grass.
I stepped out of the car into the daylight wearing a pink cowboy hat. A house was next to the car with a Chinese boy and his two younger sisters on the porch. I was visiting the family I was going to stay with in China. There was a huge television on the multi-story building next to them showing temperatures in Celsius and Fahrenheit for where we were and in Omaha. The boy talked to me about China, convincing me I should come. As I got in the car with the whole family I assured him that I would come to China and stay with them. From the trunk area I pulled out strange hats and made every one put one on: a fedora, a little hat with feathers like Lucille Ball would have worn, a pink sparkly cowboy hat, etc.

And you thought only Jesus could walk on water.

Lying in a large field of medium height grass is me, Ajay, Ruchi, my brother, and other nonspecific friends. We are staring up at the blue sky laughing and talking about whatever comes up. I reach over to Ajay to get his attention before I say something to him, and, realizing he isn’t wearing any clothes, I say, “AJAY!” so that everyone sits up to figure out what is going on. Ajay grumbles about how he doesn’t see what the big deal is, he was just lying there, hanging out. He may as well have been blowing spit bubbles. He rolls his eyes at us and pulls on a pair of shorts that were hanging around by his feet so he can go water skiing.
The field is slowly turning into a lake, with the water rolling towards us. Everyone starts water skiing, and I sit on top of the water watching them in the distance until I decide I want to go over by them. I swim towards my friends and looking down into the lake I see some of my friends have turned into fish.
I start following the school of fish away from the other friends who are water skiing. The water is deep and though it is clear it has a brownish tinge. Sharks accented with pink and blue rhinestones swim around with the fish. When they are hunting, they float vertically in the water, head up, completely still.
One of the sharks is hunting near the shore, so I swim by as quietly as I can, but it sees me and comes up after me. I swim frantically to the shore, twisting and turning with the shark. Eventually, I make it to the beach and sit there in a t-shirt and bathing suite bottom, hugging my knees to my chest.
As I sit on the beach, a college age boy approaches. He is carrying some type of fat old-school looking calculating device with him. He walks across the water to where a truck is sticking part way out. He walks around the truck slowly. Last night, he drove his truck off the road where it hit a tree then bounced into the lake.
It seems like there is no way he will be able to get the truck out by himself. A few friends of his appear, but I know they won’t be able to get it. I call out to him from the shoreline, asking if he wants me to call my horse to help pull out the truck.
“Collosis!” I yell across the lake, then whistle loudly.
Collosis, a huge quarter horse, gallops across the lake to the boy who is holding out an apple. Collosis takes the apple…and the boy’s entire arm and starts running around the lake, dragging the boy with him. After a go around, Collosis returns and starts helping get the truck out.
A van pulls up alongside the lake carrying a family with so many members they can barely fit inside. They stopped to watch the truck get pulled out of the water. I walk over to the van and poke my head in. The youngest girl has to stay in a special roof compartment it is so squished in there.
The front seat passenger points to the large trees by the lake, where a man dressed in a funny black hat and black outfit is flitting about. He is a magician, and resembles Rumplestiltskin.

I've got talent.

I was in a western bar and I was going to show all of the men in there how to play the guitar. I had a plastic toy that was a cowboy holding a guitar, and where the strings were was just one big hunk of yellow plastic. When I pushed the plastic in, it would make music.
Well, I would push it with different fingers to make it look like I was playing, and music came out, but it sounded like a piano, not a guitar! Not that anyone seemed to mind.
A blond girl approached me and begged me to come to the bathroom with her so she wouldn't be alone. She was scared because something bad had happened to her, and I sympathized and went with her. I played my guitar-man for her while she peed and washed her hands.
Suddenly, Tom was in the bathroom and the guitar was gone. We started kissing very passionately right there in front of the blond girl. Tom became aware of the girl by the sink and stopped kissing me to walk over to the shower in the bathroom that was all nasty with green mold. He said "How am I supposed to start a business with something like this?" and flushed the shower.
The water went down then came rushing back and shot up in the air like a fountain. We were looking at it with wonder when out of the corner of my eye I saw on the side of the shower a GIGANTIC spider! Its body had to be bigger than a baseball and it talked! No one in the room could figure out where it had come from. It scrambled around the room and I held up my shoe to it to squish it, but realized there was no way I could squish it with a shoe, it was HUGE! Closer up, I could see that it was brown with spikes all over it, like a cactus. The spider disappeared into the chimney, or so we thought. Standing there, I realized it was crawling up the back of my leg and it said "I'm going to crawl up your shorts! HAHA!" When I pushed it off of my leg, its spines stuck my right hand. Someone chased the spider out the door.
My hand was seeping clear liquid where I had touched the spines. My mom was in the room now, but didn't seem particularly worried, so I suggested I go to the hospital.
No one would take me to the hospital, so there I was, wandering around a big office with my hand seeping. There were groups of young attorneys in the offices eating lunch and laughing with their doors closed. I didn't know where to go and I didn't know anyone.

I am Richard Gere.

I am Richard Gere. Not in any movie roll, but as himself. I walk into a job interview that is being held in a very small, luxuiously decorated lecture hall. Standing just inside the door, the man and woman interviewing me say, "You are such a good looking man!" and so I give them a (practiced) embarrassed "oh, stop" smile.

The man comes to greet me but I hardly acknowledge him, only brushing his outstretched hand with my own as I sweep past to see the woman. I touch her shoulders and talk about going to dinner later. We have a history, it seems. She is dressed simply in a long denim dress with a deep red jacket on top. She is very pretty, but not striking. After spending enough time convincing her to go to dinner with me to make the man uncomfortable, I head to the front of the room to begin the interview.

I field their questions effortlessly. I will make a wonderful professor.